


Epilogue

by Calculatrice



Category: Senyuu. (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Comedy, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Spoilers for the first four volumes and kinda the fifth, it's so self indulgent im blushing, question mark?, this entire fic is just them liking each other a lot and wondering what to do about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22003111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calculatrice/pseuds/Calculatrice
Summary: “It’s too obvious why you wanted to come here, Hero,” Ross sighs. He affects a serious glance next to him, delight bubbling in his chest at the instinctively apprehensive look on Alba’s face. “Over indulging your masochistic tendencies isn’t good, you know.”Predictably, Alba splutters. “It’s not masochism!” Both his hands wave frantically in familiar denial. “Why is your answer always masochism?”
Relationships: Alba Frühling/Ross | Creasion
Comments: 20
Kudos: 61





	Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> As a warning, I starting writing this midway through volume 5 and a _while_ into the break in chapters. So I totally forgot that Ross straight up has no powers left, and I've written him as having them. Sorry. It's not plot relevant, at least, so I hope you enjoy this otherwise.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” muses Alba, swinging his legs off the little height they’re sat on. “It doesn’t look that different from anywhere else. I mean, any other red plain. Or dry plain? Or…”

His nonsensical thoughts drift off to a nearly inaudible volume, but he continues nonetheless, filling the silence. Alba likes to do that, Ross thinks. Or it maybe he feels safer doing it. As though if he talks loud and long enough he’ll keep some inevitable joke away from their hands, the kissing tips of their fingers slowly moving to twine together. 

Shows how much he knows. There’s already a joke here, and it’s on Ross, for allowing the whole thing in the first place. For having a heart that somehow, despite beating mana through his veins, still can’t hold it together when Alba’s skin touches his.

He can feel the pulse of Alba’s wrist thrumming against his own.

“It’s too obvious why you wanted to come here, Hero,” Ross sighs. He affects a serious glance next to him, delight bubbling in his chest at the instinctively apprehensive look on Alba’s face. “Over indulging your masochistic tendencies isn’t good, you know.”

(Ross makes sure to look pointedly away from the spot where he can almost see blood splattering over the ground, two dead halves of a torso falling dully into the sand. If Alba somehow had the guts, the will, or the plain stupidity it took to come here, _he_ isn’t going to be the one who gets squeamish at old memories.)

Predictably, Alba splutters. “It’s not masochism!” Both his hands wave frantically in familiar denial. “Why is your answer always masochism?” Ross wiggles his fingers uncomfortably, the sudden loss of warmth irritatingly noticeable enough that he misses his chance to counter before Alba continues, “it’s more like, you know, a key moment.” Alba sweeps his arms outwards in vague, searching gestures. “For both of us.”

The tattered red of his scarf, tied and pinned carefully to Alba’s belt. The fabric might’ve been of high quality before the fights and literal changes of era it underwent, but at this point the pin is stretching a small hole in its knot and threads are unravelling from the ends. He reaches to unsnag a couple from stone, still feeling that same niggle of _I don’t want to be here_ that he refuses to admit to. It’s not so much trauma as it is _disparity_ \- here he is, Hero by his side as natural as though he’d always been there and maybe Ross is okay with that, but then he remembers that the last time he’d been here he’d thrown away his own life in the space of a heartbeat to save Alba’s and he still remembers, remembers that tandem sink and swoop in his chest as he watched Alba blink open his eyes, only for the tight seal in the back of his awareness to come mercilessly undone.

He glances back up and nearly jumps when he finds Alba staring straight at him, contemplative. 

Not to be outdone, he meets it with a long one of his own, a slow blink. “Trying to set me on fire?”

“What?” blurts Alba, startled.

“Your stalker stare,” Ross clarifies, putting painstaking stress in every syllable. “You have to control your creep tendencies, Hero, if you don’t want your poor magic control to end in combustion.”

“It would not!” Alba immediately protests vehemently, seemingly more affronted by the slight to his magic than the stalker accusation. Maybe he’s just picking his battles - Ross has had plenty of experience arguing for Hero’s creepiness. “My magic control is not _poor,_ thank you,” he huffs. “It’s literally the same as yours.”

Ross pulls a face.

“Really?” Alba sounds exasperated, if begrudgingly amused. He drops both his arms to his sides and hesitates for just a moment before taking Ross’s hand in his own in one swift, complete move. 

His shoulders relax when Ross doesn’t say a word. The contact is warm and soothing. Alba curls his hand a little more tightly around Ross’s, stroking his thumb over his skin.

His hand’s a lot dryer than expected, considering the wrath of the sun glaring down from above them, but Ross supposes that Alba got a lot better at fine heat control after the whole isolated-in-a-mountain thing. And well, Alba’s always had a surprisingly good grip on most everything, despite the gags and all the nearly-dying. 

Ross shifts his hand, sliding his fingers to interlink more securely with Alba’s, and pointedly keeps his eyes turned away.

He doesn’t turn back at the breathy sound of a laugh beside him, doesn’t resist when his hand is gently lifted, and doesn’t say a word at the soft press of lips over his knuckles.

.

.

They’re dating, is the thing.

Though Ross can’t really say he’s used those words often. Or maybe at all, outside the privacy of his own head. He’d call it _closeness_ if only the insecure vagueness of it didn’t make him want to make fun of himself. 

_Sometimes it’s a curse to be the group sadist_ , he thinks with no real sincerity, affecting a suspiration dramatic enough to make Alba shoot him a confused glance as they make their way away from the clearing. 

“Something sad?”

“Tragic,” Ross agrees. “An unfortunate but necessary burden.” 

Again, Alba’s face goes instantly wary, and Ross should really be more irritated at how easily he picks up Ross’s “I am now going to trigger your retort reflex” tells, but it’s honestly kind of hilarious. And maybe a lot endearing.

“It must be.” Alba finally agrees cautiously, going with a de-fuser. Which isn’t… _un_ common, exactly. But more often than not Alba lets his jokes flourish because he’s too curious for his own good, and

(Ross fights down the reddening in his cheeks, it’s just a thought, what is he a _child-_ )

he likes watching Ross laugh, or something.

At any rate, Alba so carefully avoiding an act means that he wants to bring up something, agh, _serious_. Conflicting - on the one hand, it could be Alba announcing that he’s completed his research and is planning to hop dimensions tomorrow morning. On the other hand, Alba might get bisected mid-sentence. 

Which would be... uncomfortable, but - Ross flexes his fingers, energy gathering quickly under his skin - ultimately fixable. He figures he can probably let Alba take this at his pace.

They’re about a twenty minute’s walking distance from the castle. Ross is beginning to think that maybe Alba’s going to put off whatever’s on his mind when he suddenly tugs Ross’s sleeve to catch his attention.

“Last week, Elf told me to take a week off,” Alba says by way of beginning, a frown on his face. 

Ross slips his hands into his pockets, not really knowing what to do with this information. “Didn’t his version of you die of overwork or something?”

Alba shakes his head. “Totally natural, a stroke. Old age.”

Ross considers that, feeling his head hurt as it tries to fit the concepts _old age_ and _Alba_ together, before shrugging it off altogether. “What did you do?”

“I spent a day at home,” Alba replies simply. 

Ross raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Alf got involved in the whole thing,” he admits. “They started ganging up on me, all ‘just take a break, Alba,’ and ‘we’re not going to crash the centre into the castle while you’re gone, Alba,’ and I wasn’t even _worried_ about that until they brought it up but then-” 

“Did they?” Did Ross _miss_ that?

“No,” is the disappointing answer. There’s still a deep furrow in Alba’s brow. “I ended up checking up on them in the evening, though. I was stressed all day.” 

“Okay.” Sounds boringly non-disastrous, “so what’s the issue?” 

“Doesn’t it feel kind of…you know,” Alba wrinkles his nose. “Tame?” 

Ross gives him a look of sudden, deeply enlightened concern. “Do you _want_ someone to crash your lab into the ground?

“What? No, I-” 

“You have to be clear about your wishes, you know” Ross chides, ignoring Alba’s sputters with practised ease. “Just because you’re a masochist for tragedy doesn’t mean you can just expect it to fall out of the sky. You have to _ask_ for these things.”

“And I’m telling you, that’s not it!” 

“Something different?” Frowning in consternation, Ross lifts his hand to his chin, “it does look like a planet, after all. An explosion? An _im_ plosion?”

“No, no!” Alba grabs both of Ross’s shoulders, something like desperation in his eyes. “Don’t take everything I say as a secret wish for ruin!” 

He’s breathing hard when he finishes, winded in the way he only gets after playing straight man. Then the odd look of contemplation comes back, and he crosses his arms, staring. Ross waits, amusement marred by confusion, shaking off the grip on his shoulders. 

“I just,” Alba drums his fingers on his hip as he thinks. “They told us about me- him, didn’t they? The Alba Fruhling who discovered magic then messed around with it until he passed away.”

Ross barely bites back a _so?_ He can be patient, he told himself to be patient. 

“I’m not really on any deadline or anything for this project, because, you know, time literally isn’t real.” He looks up to the sky. “Elf and Alf bring in pastries every day instead of proper food and have pretty much settled in. And,” one of the corners of his mouth pulls upwards like he can’t stop it, and he points a finger at himself and Ross in turn. “You know. Us. Without any big plot where I have to pretend to fight you, or something.”

There’s something about the tone of Alba’s voice that robs Ross of any will to tease. So he just nods, and looks at him, at light brown eyes shining bright in the sun, waiting.

“I guess I feel like I’m in the epilogue of the book,” Alba brings the words forward with certainty, having finally found just what he was trying to say. “Just like in Elf’s - ‘Fruhling lived out the rest of his life in blah blah.’ Like someone’s writing down the last couple of lines.” He spreads out his arms, rays of sun splitting to dance over his skin. “‘And then things were like that forever. The end.’”

Ross blinks at the blot of Hero’s silhouette against the horizon. “I figured the whole parallel universe project would be another volume, or something.”

Alba purses his lips, shaking his head. “Again, it’s not exactly time-sensitive, since it pretty much negates a lot of the concept of time. Plus it doesn’t even really involve anyone we know except Alf and Elf, and even they’ve settled here, so it doesn’t really have the urgency _or_ the humour. Besides,” he drops his arms, “it’s more like the end of the writing, not the end of the story. Tomorrow isn’t _coming up next,_ it’s just my tomorrow.”

“Poetic,” Ross comments dryly. “So what about it?” 

Alba takes a deep breath before turning back to look at him, the weird, dreamy look on his face gone. “I guess I’ve just never really thought about doing things for the future.” he says much more casually. “Even this whole parallel thing, I only really thought about as here and now. “

Ross takes a deep breath. Then, in a practised move, neatly jabs Alba under his rib cage. 

It’s heartening to see him double over, clutching his gut with the same horrified disbelief from when they first met. This, at least, is easy to understand. 

“That,” he intones calmly, before Alba can recover, “Was for wasting all that time for something that could have been summed up in a sentence. That morning trip was also because of this, wasn’t it?” 

Looking more affronted than in pain, Alba protests, “I wanted to explain where I was coming from!”

Ross shakes his head, not bothering to hide the scowl on his face. He really didn’t need to contemplate two different Albas dying for a lead up to what’s essentially just a teenage life crisis. 

“If you want to think about the future just _think_ about it,” he restrains the snap to drip with disdain. “Enough melodrama.” 

“I have been!” Alba cries in voice dangerously close to a whine. He must realise it, because he straightens and clears his throat. “I have been,” he repeats, more calmly. 

He focuses, once again, on Ross’s face, and for all his twisting in circles he doesn’t look unsure of himself in the slightest as he steps closer. 

“I wanted to hear what you thought,” he admits softly.

Ross remembers a time when even his vaguest irritation had Alba backing away.

(They’re dating, is the thing.)

He clicks his tongue, frustration loosening out. “The preamble is stupid,” he drops bluntly. “You pick goals, and you get them. If you want to get them to please old-and-grey you, it’s not like anything changes.”

Alba blinks at him. Ross sighs, almost wishing for the Hero to be looking for an ego-stroke, but no. He’s really just that stupid. 

“I- a lot of this country’s only got a future _because_ of your _thinking in the present_ , idiot.”

Alba barely has time to blush before Ross smacks him upside the head for forcing him to say something so nauseatingly mushy. Whatever else Alba finds, he’s sure that this is definitely the worst timeline.

Annoyingly, Alba lets his skull rattle with grace, jubilant expression unaffected. He takes Ross’s hand again with ease, palm squeezing tightly around his fingers, and looks carefully into Ross’s face before smiling even brighter.

“Thanks, Ross.”

The _worst_ timeline, Ross swears to himself, but he doesn’t let go. Neither does Alba look away, eyes fixed on him with that weird intensity he gets sometimes, and then Ross knows what’s coming before it does. 

“You’re a dumbass,” Ross informs him seriously, giving him a questioning tilt of head. “Why would I want to kiss a dumbass?”

Alba blinks, face paused inches away from Ross’s own. “That was a moment,” he protests. “That was one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me. That was a _moment._ ”

“For a shoujo heroine maybe,” Ross agrees loftily. “Luckily, unlike them I have more than one brain cell-”

He almost misses it - it’s quick, a casual lean in rather than an invitation. Alba pecks him softly on the forehead. 

“-so I can reject the idiot whose only romantic experience is from movies.” Ross finishes nonetheless.

Alba pulls back, looking mollified in spite of things. He even dares to go as far as to tuck some of Ross’s hair beyond his ear, face ruthlessly bright in that way he only gets when he’s gotten something he well and truly wanted, which is as embarrassing as it is kind of nice.

Pleased with the renewed spring in Alba’s step, Ross opens his mouth, a poke at the hero’s silly expression ready on his tongue, when they’re both startled by a distant, rumbling _BOOM._

They turn as one to the castle and the floating laboratory which have just come into view to see something soaring from one of its windows and into the distance. 

Ross feels his mouth stretch into a wide satisfied smile just as Alba slaps a hand over his own face. 

“Well Hero, guess your lab assistant decided to be today’s special event,” he says over the sound of distant yelling, gut shaking with suppressed laughter. “He’s pretty aerodynamic, isn’t he?” 

Alba doubles over in tired exasperation, and Ross senses mana wrapping around the hero’s limbs as he prepares to dash to Elf’s rescue. Looks like the end of their da- day, their _day._

“See you soon?” He asks, lifting his head with what seems like great effort.

“Sure,” Ross agrees easily despite it all. Hero’s face goes a little soft, the mush that he is.

Alba straightens, hesitates, shifts, hesitates again, then leans in to press their mouths together in a quick but proper kiss before disappearing in a burst of speed.

Ross blinks, finds himself very suddenly aware of the sheer domesticity of the routine. 

And then he flicks his gaze back to Elf, who’s only just started to fall back down through the air, and puts it out of mind, doubling over and laughing without restraint.

.

.

“Epilogue?”

Ross nods, crossing his arms behind his head as he hangs from a tree branch by his legs. 

Crea puts a hand to his chin, face set in a fierce, concentrated frown, somehow paying no notice to the stag beetle still wriggling between his fingers. Ross stares at it in morbid fascination as it crawls fruitlessly in place, his best friend seemingly unconcerned about its close proximity to his mouth. 

He hadn’t really met up with Crea with the aim of telling him about Alba’s weird monologue, but it’d been spinning around the back of his mind all throughout the last few days to the point where it’d just kind of tumbled out without any real push. At any rate, Crea isn’t one to judge, and he spends a surprisingly large amount of time reflecting on weird things himself - his insight would probably be less useless than say, Alles’s. 

The beetle’s sharp pincers successfully snap shut around the tip of Crea’s nose, who only blinks and lets it go. It wiggles in the air for a brief moment, still hanging off his face, before finally falling down into the dirt and crawling quickly away. 

“Well?” Ross asks. 

Crea tilts his head. “Well what?”

He sighs. “Epilogue, Crea. You were thinking?”

“I was,” Crea agrees, eyes as serious as though Ross just handed him the secret to the universe. “Your boyfriend’s pretty weird. Though he’s pretty cool too, so it works out.”

Ross feels a building twitch in his eye, smile stretching serene. It’s the kind of uninformative response that he’d usually deck him for, but lately Ruki’s been too insistent on him turning from a badass into a tsundere cliche, which is unacceptable.

“Though, I guess you already knew that,” Crea muses, unperturbed by Ross’s growing ire. “Speaking of, do you think you’ll move out of Aunt Cecily’s any time soon?”

“How is that ‘speaking of?’” Ross frowns, hopping down from his perch and crossing his arms. “Probably not. I mean, she hasn’t seen me in like, a century. She freaks out if I’m not home for dinner without telling her.”

“You’d be telling her, though,” Crea points out. 

“I guess,” Ross shrugs. “why, though?” It’s not really like Crea to ask Ross about future life plans, not when his own amounts to _“catch more bugs tomorrow maybe.”_

Crea stares at him. “Because we were talking about epilogues.”

He raises an eyebrow. “So what, I have to pick the place I’ll be in for the rest of my life? _And then the hero Creasion hung out at his mom’s til he died?_ ”

“What? No,” Crea has the gall to look confused, as if _Ross_ is the one not making sense here. “That old guy from back home packed up, turned into a teenager and swapped dimensions, didn’t he? I’m pretty sure that means you’re allowed to move whenever. Or turn into an age that lets you move whenever. But that basically means-”

“I get it,” Ross says, cutting off the dangerous beginnings of a ramble. “So why?”

“Because _Alba’_ s talking about epilogues,” Crea says as if it’s obvious, which is deeply aggravating, because _nothing_ obvious to someone as dense as Crea should be leaving him in the dark. 

“Yes, I _know,_ ” he says impatiently. 

Crea, the bastard, doesn’t go any further, like he’s already made his point.

He’s ready to smack him, tsundere cliches be damned, and maybe Crea sees it, because he quickly distracts him by suddenly straightening up and dropping a fist into his palm in realisation. 

“Why don’t we just go there now?”

Ross smacks him anyway, just to get it out of his system. “To where, my mom’s place?”

Eyes watering in pain but face set in decision, Crea shakes his head. “No, to Alba’s floaty thing. The little planet. So you can ask him about epilogues. See what he came up with.”

Ross opens his mouth, but finds he doesn’t really know how to refute that suggestion.

“I mean, it’s not like he’d mind you visiting, since you _are_ his bo-” 

He jabs Crea (lightly, all things considered) in the stomach on reflex, lips pursed. He doesn’t think he’s ever just dropped by the lab on a whim. It feels odd, but Crea has a point. He’ll let Alba clear up why he brought up the topic in the first place, smack him for being confusing, and that’ll be the end of that.

.

.

As it turns out, paying the lab a visit does not constitute ‘the end of that,’ as a part of it appears to be on fire. 

The floating, smoking planet has just come into view when Elf’s familiar silhouette once again falls out of it. To his credit this time it looks deliberate, as he sticks the landing with a neat roll and has just fallen into a completely unnecessary finishing pose when he catches sight of the two of them. 

“Ah- Ross-san! And Crea-san!” he beams even as drops of what look like molten metal roll down his cheek and singe holes into his shirt. “What brings you two here?”

“Is this a workers’ revolt?” asks Ross, intrigued.

“Is that regular fire or explosives?” Crea adds.

Elf laughs like he usually does, that is to say: obnoxiously and for a full ten more seconds than necessary. He still hasn’t finished by the time his other half lands next to him. Less gracefully, unfortunately - Alf is facedown in the grass, and Elf’s laughter is stretching even longer.

Alf groans lowly, but gets up, and when his eyes finally focus, he seems surprised to see them there. 

“Ross-san, Crea-san,” he greets them with a remarkable amount of dignity for someone with mud stuck under his eyes. “What brings you two here?”

“Not a revolt,” Elf cheerfully slides over his partner’s unintentional repetition. “We’re on vacation, technically.”

“Technically,” Ross repeats back to him. The smell of smoke is still acrid in his nostrils.

Alf sighs, cleaning the dripping metal off Elf’s face with a flick of his fingers. “Alba-san said he wanted to work on a personal project, and that we could take the rest of the week off.”

“But we got curious!” Elf grins, before abruptly scrunching his nose. “And then we blew up- a little.”

“Not on purpose,” Alf reassures them, and his eyes dart, as they so often do, to Ross, like he’s going to go home and rat him out to his mom. “It was a genuine mistake.”

“The genuine mistake was letting the two of you come in today,” says a tired voice.

Alba touches down neatly behind his two assistants, rare irritation dark on his face. Or maybe it’s just the soot. Ross glances up at the lab, and finds it’s back to its original state, if still shaded by a rising cloud of smoke. 

“...is what I’d like to say,” sighs Alba, face smoothing into familiar exasperation. “But I actually got something I can work with, so, thank you?” 

Elf beams, Alf looks smug. And glances at Ross again, the weirdo. 

Alba follows his gaze, and blanches at the sight of him. Pale-faced trepidation isn’t all that common a greeting from Alba anymore, Ross thinks. It’s a welcome callback. 

“Ross?” He says, pitch on the edge of a squeak. “I thought we were meeting tomorrow?”

“Did you figure anything out about epilogues?”

To his horror, Crea steps in before Ross can even open his mouth. 

Alba blinks, once, twice, glances from Ross to Crea to his lab assistants and back again, and,

Goes bright red. 

Which is in itself not all that off of a response. The worrying part is Alba’s expression, which is set determined despite the warmth in his cheeks. It’s a face which does funny things to Ross’s stomach.

(One of these days, he’s going to sit and deck Alba once for every single one of these feelings.)

“I did,” Alba says firmly, ignoring Elf and Alf’s questioning glances. He’s not even looking at Crea. 

Ross stares back, hand instinctively moving to slap over Crea’s mouth when he tries to ask the obvious follow-up. 

“Tomorrow,” Alba answers anyway.

“Now,” Ross offers helpfully.

Alba goes even redder, face morphing into mild panic. This isn’t helping Ross’s curiosity.

“Four hours,” he pleads.

“Too big of a drop,” he hears Alf whisper softly. “What kind of negotiation is that?”

“Three and a half,” Ross decides. 

“Bad,” Crea whispers back. 

Alba nods, eyes a little wild. He doesn’t wait, whirling on his assistants with a speed that blinks briefly out of sight. 

“You’re on break,” he says, voice strung tense. “Go home.”

Elf’s eyes go wide at the expression Ross can’t see. But he is who he is, so he goes, “you sure about that?” 

It’s Alf who blanches now, grabbing Elf’s wrist and bidding them goodbye with a hasty wave. His friend’s mouth stretches into a placating smile as he raises two fingers to his head to give a lazy salute as he’s dragged away. 

“Three hours and twenty-nine minutes,” Crea says instead of commenting on either, reminding Ross exactly why they’re friends. 

Alba only nods again with a blank “yes.” One of his hands brush lightly against the hanging hem of Ross’s shirt. He’s got a little bit of molten metal on his shoulder that’s beginning to seep through the layer of mana over his lab coat. 

“Three hours and twenty-eight minutes,” he says after a moment, resolute, and hops directly upwards to his lab. 

Ross and Crea stare after him. 

“Problem solved,” says Crea brightly, hands on his hips.

“What the fuck,” says Ross. 

“He said he’d tell you, Shion,” Crea turns to unleash the full force of his grin upon him. “Isn’t that great?”

“I have literally no idea,” Ross admits. He doesn’t know what kind of answer made Hero want twenty-four hours of preparation. Nor what could have provoked the expression on his face, for that matter. 

Crea gives him a careful look, in that particular way of his that makes him look both clueless and all-knowing. Ross lets it drag out with a soft sigh. Maybe there’ll be insight. 

“Three and a bit hours is three and a bit hours,” Crea eventually decides. “Wanna go catch more bugs?”

Or maybe not. 

.

.

The horizon line is glowing dim orange, the sky streaked in shades of red and deep purple as the sun tucks itself away for the night. A quiet rustle, a wind pushed gently out of the way, and Alba’s touching down in front of him. 

“Hi,” he says a little breathlessly. 

Ross raises an eyebrow, but lifts a hand nonetheless for a noncommittal “yo.”

“Okay,” nods Alba, bobbing his head far longer than he needs to. “So, I thought I’d have a little more prep time to do this- but honestly you’re right, the faster the better and, well, turns out it _was_ all the time I needed, so-”

“Hero.”

“Right. But I, first I wanted to ask,” and here he looks a little nervous, like he’d be scuffing his shoe against the ground if Ross wouldn’t ruthlessly bully him for it. “About- about epilogues. What do you think of them?”

Ross heaves a sigh, hands on his hips. “This again? It’s planning, middle-schoolers are forced do it with a career form-”

“No! I mean, what about you?”

Ross stops, biting back the instinctive deflection that springs ready to his tongue. Wasn’t this Alba’s messy conundrum? Ross only figured out how to earn a stable income like, a half-year ago. Alba’s hand is half outstretched towards his, like he can’t help himself. Alba’s jacket is burning deeper orange the longer the sun sets. 

Alba’s looking at him like Ross’s answer is the most important thing he’ll ever hear.

So, Ross makes himself shrug.

“Who knows,” he says non-committedly. “Mom wants to try something new for dinner tomorrow.”

Biting his lip, Alba asks, “and then?”

“I don’t know, Hero.”

Alba nods, and his whole body shifts with the force of it. “Okay, okay.” He nods again as if for good measure. His fingers twist together in uncertain turns as he rocks back and forth. 

Something clicks, Ross shoots him a Look. “Are you trying to get me to say something gross about you?”

Hero’s head snaps up, startled by the accusation. “Uh, not exactly. Well. A little. Wait wait wait!” He takes a step back, holding his arms up pacifyingly as Ross advances. “It’s not like that. I wasn’t fishing for anything, I just-” His eyes dart searchingly to the side like he’s gathering himself and then finally he asks, “am I there? In your plans for the future.”

“Depends. Are you planning on disappearing?”

“No,” Alba replies, very slowly. His face brightens gradually, restless fingers relaxing as if each syllable of Ross’s response is still parsing in his head. “No, I’m not.”

And there it is. Ross rolls his eyes and flicks Alba in the forehead with a healthy dose of mana-backed strength. “Now you. It’s past deadline.”

Rocking backwards, then forwards again, Hero blinks pain tears and confusion out of his eyes. “Yes! My thing,” Alba understands, “the thing that we’re here for. Yes.” 

Ross bites down a smirk. He feels like he should be more impatient, but Hero floundering is always fun to watch.

“So, I, uh, thought about it. And I found something I want. For the future, I mean, that doesn’t really have anything to do with the plot.”

Ross nods, waving a hand in a _go on_ gesture.

“And, you know,” Alba’s gaining confidence as he talks, words coming out with surety if not fluidity. “I thought about it more, and. I’m going to act. To. Secure it. Now.”

“Your personal project,” Ross guesses.

“No- It’s related, but no. I figured everything out in like an hour. The personal project was…”

Alba takes a deep breath. He steps towards Ross, eyes fully focused and deeply brown. Ross notices his fingers curl slightly into the scarf at his hip, like the ragged material is comfort, before he reaches past it, into his pocket, and, 

“This was the project.”

It’s a small, neat little glass case tinted dark blue, smoothly shut and resting innocently in the centre of Alba’s palm. 

Ross reaches forward to flick it open, and feels his entire body stutter. 

“What,” he whispers, very quietly. 

“The colour was super bugging me at first,” Alba says in a rush, “the rubies I looked at were cool but they were cut to look pale in some of the edges and they didn’t do what your eyes someti- anyway, it took a while to get it right.” He laughs nervously. “And then I thought maybe a protection enchantment, but that seemed kind of insulting, so I-”

“Alba.”

“Shutting up.”

There’s a ring in the box. 

It’s a clean silver band, gleaming smugly with the light of the setting sun. At its center is an inlaid red gem, it’s surface smooth and polished and… Swirling. Shades falling from crimson refuse to still, dancing around the light touching it, darkening, lightening, constantly changing. 

“No lab methods,” Ross demands, and if he’s on the edge of breathless it doesn’t matter. “Tell me exactly what you mean by this.”

“You asked me what I want for my future,” Alba says steadily, though the ring box is trembling. “So, my answer. I know you don’t really know what you want, and this doesn’t have to mean anything in the _traditional_ sense, though I’d like it to-”

“There really are all kinds of masochists in this world,” Ross breathes in blank disbelief. “You want to _marry_ me?” 

“So much,” Alba blurts. “Like, a lot.”

Ross looks up at that to stare at him, at the uncertain tilt of his eyebrows but the focused pin of his gaze, the trembling of his fingers paired with the steady stance of battle. 

“So, what? You want to- to hold a- did you come up with this two days ago?”

“We wouldn’t need to get married immediately! Just-” Alba lifts the box a little higher, and Ross’s eyes inevitable draw back down to it as if pulled there. The red is still shifting. “I’m sure about this. This is my promise. And, if you… accepted it, you’d be… promising me too?”

Promising… what, exactly? What would marrying Alba even entail? Another day as confusing as this one? As the one days ago, when Alba held his hand through a conversation about his future? More moments like the triumphant kiss on his forehead, the gentle laugh by his side, playing jokes and watching Alba steam and explode and then cool and take his hand again… 

Ross feels his fingers twitch by his sides. Silence stretches uncomfortably long and Alba’s face grows steadily redder.

“Alright,” says Ross suddenly.

There’s a moment where Alba nods instinctively with zero comprehension on his face. Then the shock sets in. 

“Wait, what?”

“All right,” Ross repeats with crisp enunciation, holding out a palm. “Hand it over.”

Alba stares at him dumbly.

“Well?”

It finally seems to strike, as Alba immediately fumbles to get the ring out of the box before very carefully dropping it in the centre of Ross’s palm. Which is technically what he asked for, but it feels like Alba’s idiocy transferred with it, as now that he can actually feel the cool metal in his hand he can’t seem to actually do anything with it. 

So they stay like that for another while, Alba looking at him expectantly.

“It, uh, goes on your left.”

Alba gets a well-deserved kick in the shin for that. But Ross finally slides the ring on. It shines quietly on his finger, with a subtle warmth that he thinks must be a spell, but can’t be fucked to ask about yet. It’s taking too much of his energy to just even look at the thing. 

It’s… really nice.

“Ross,” Alba breathes, and when Ross looks up his eyes are fixed on his hand. It’s kind of funny, because when Ross moves it, Alba just keeps following without reacting until the poke finally hits his face.

Alba blinks a few times, but instead of a retort what he says is, “Can I kiss you?”

Ross nods without thinking about it.

For how slowly they’ve both been moving up until now Alba’s fingers are curving around his cheek in moments, his face close enough that Ross can feel him exhale against his bottom lip. And then they kiss, soft and easy and familiar.

Then Alba moves away, just far enough for them to see each other’s faces. He smiles bright and unapologetically happy, thumb gently tracing Ross’s ring finger. 

Ross feels a slow smile he can't fight and thinks, 

_Yeah, this’ll work._

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this fic for So Long so here it is, finally completed after having been sitting in my wips for possibly centuries. It was SO funny to look back at my opening scene after reading the start of volume 6, oh my god. the amount of unintended dramatic irony, i can't
> 
> Ross's character is really weird to pin down and I struggled so much, and ultimately I'm still iffy with it in a lot of places, but there you go. You can tear it apart if you feel motivated. On the other hand for Alba I crylaughed when i remembered that scene where he babbles for like three full screens after getting confessed to and wholeheartedly adopted it
> 
> Thanks for reading and please kudo/comment if you liked it! (and talk about senyuu with me man this fandom is so small)


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